This is my off-to-college year which is one of the reasons why my mom has been very co-operative in giving me pointers on everyday cooking. Even though I won’t be cooking in hostel, I feel I should make good use of this summer to learn some basic dishes as I really want to be able to cook for myself after I graduate (etc etc). I don’t really like the idea of someone else (read: cook) cooking for me and me having to complain about the salt, the mirchi, the masala and what not. Better to just be independent, right? PLUS, it’s a helluva lot of fun :)

Okay. So I haven’t really learnt any everyday-dishes so far because I always get tempted to make yummy snacks and that’s exactly what I did!

Yesterday, I made dosa for breakfast. Onion dosa, my personal favourite. It was the first time I was making the actual, thin and crisp dosa. I have made the normal thickness ones umpteen times before, but would think twice before making these. To my amazement, they came out to be perfectly golden and absolutely delectable! Thanks to the new non-stick pan, of course! Here’s a picture!

Last Sunday, I’d made onion pakodas (which are called ‘piyaji’ in Oriya. Onions are called ‘piyaja’(pronounced as piya-jaw)). They are my mom’s ALL TIME favourite snack. She totally loved them and also shot a few my-little-girl-is-growing-up-so-fast type dialogues which I’m not repeating over here! ;)

Here, take a look!

And another :) I can’t get enough of these!

I had also tried out Asha’s Kodubale but had substituted maida with atta. They tasted real good and everyone liked them but their shapes were all messed up! They looked like famished bangles *sheepish grin* So I’m not putting up a pic! Heehee. I hope next time I try them, I get the shapes right!

Are you a smart pigeon looking for a safe place to build your nest, lay eggs and perch on your nest till those sweetums hatch? If yes, then listen up! Your search has come to an end. You are cordially invited to lay your eggs (and also to do the necessary before that event takes place *ahem* so call all those who might be involved in the process) in a first-class environment such as this :

The topmost rack on the wall,

Blogowner’s house (hall, to be precise),

Top floor,

Building next to the tall Ashoka trees.

In case you’re wondering about the safety of this Maternity Home, rest assured as we have 90% success rate. Last December (a hard time, indeed, for most pigeons) Momma Pigy and Papa Pigy had wooed each other outside our Home (window sill of BO’s hall), must have mated successfully, had found long periods of much needed rest in one of the guest rooms in our Home (a different area of the topmost rack), had found all the necessary nest-building items from the trees nearby, built the nest over a period of 7 days and successfully laid 2 eggs. You see, Momma Pigy and Papa Pigy might’ve changed their mind after a while since neither the eggs nor the parents were to be found after a week (the week when the human inhabitants of the area around our Home were out). Hence, we say 90% success rate. How honest are we!

The Home provides excellent entertainment facilities in the form of a certain human who is said to be ‘S’. Said S finds our kind rather enchanting and we, of course, love such humans. There is, however another human who goes by ‘BO’- that creature, we do not much appreciate since she keeps the curtains closed most of the time. Only we know the extremely painful periods of longing that one parent spends one side of the curtain, and the other on the other side. It is much like the India-Pakistan saga that we have come to learn about from the 7 or 8 newspapers that these humans read (get, rather). So, be warned of BO. Rest of the humans can be safely ignored.

No human, however, has ever tried to break our Home. This is a huge plus for our kind since we always target peace-loving family-type human territories to set up our special Maternity Home facilities.

Do not worry about food. There is enough around. At times, the human inhabitants offer some to our kind. So be not worried.

From the above information, I’m sure you realise what a safe and comfortable location the abovementioned is.

We invite booking-applications from expecting parent pigeons after 20th April since we are currently tending to a couple- a beautiful white (with grey specks) pigy and his/her usual grey type counterpart. Remember, the early bird catches a room in our Home!

This is a harrowing time for me. The navbar does not appear no matter WHAT I do. As a result, I don't have a search box. I tried inserting codes for a search box in my sidebar, but the sidebar is too tiny and has limited space, which is why none of those search boxes fit (my VDNA didn't fit either, which was why i had to put it up in a post *sniff*). I hate such inflexibility! I don't like the drab blogger templates on offer plus I want something unique for my pot (heehee). I have been pestering S to design a template for me- which she can, since she is excellent at that stuff, but she doesn't know the coding bit which is turning out to be a problem. So basically, I'm stuck with this template (no matter how pretty it may be, if it's as rigid and inconvenient as it is, I shall remove it sooner or later!) and beta blogger. Yes, beta blogger. There are hardly any templates on the web for beta blogger. This stinks!

You know, after a point, the whole deal about ‘vacations’ gets a tad boring. Heck. A lot boring if you don’t particularly engage yourself in worthy ‘activities’ (perhaps this would give me some ideas of what to include in the ‘activities’ section in my Orkut profile, which by the way, I must say is the stupidest question that one can ever be asked. Would breathing qualify as an ‘activity’? Say?) that keep you from wanting to sleep or only listen to your ipod or read endlessly or some such.

Talking about Orkut, there is new breed of fraandshippers that I have unfortunately come across. They try to ‘make fraandship’ with you by taunting you in some way, or asking you pathetically stupid questions on something that MAY interest you. For instance, this one particular fraandshipper (it should be in the dictionary by 2009, I say!) asks me:

“So, astro girl, what is it about astrology that interests you?” (in horrid grammar which I am incapable (thankfully) of reiterating over here)

I really felt like replying and going like ‘na na na na’ (you know, with the whole making of faces, pulling of tongue and wiggling about, like they do when a team is badly losing) ‘I didn’t fall for THAT haha’, but I resisted. Making their victim reply is the sole purpose of slothful frandshippers and EYE (to emphasise on I) am not going to let them have that pleasure. So, smart me did not reply. I couldn’t resist telling SOMEONE, so I blogged. Hee. *blush*

However, the most common breed of fraandshipper that I have come across is, quite obviously, the one who sends an ‘h’ followed by a string of ‘i’s whose purpose I still haven’t figured out. I mean, WHY would anyone scrap any random person ‘hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii’ ? Why? Do you know? I don’t know!

Maximum pity is, neverthless, felt for those who send their whole bio-data in one scrap. God save them. Please. This particular breed of fraandshippers, somehow, reminds me of Dr.Batawekar and his beloved cow with white teeths who is so attractiu that grasses comes flying to her teeths. How louly. I don’t know! They simply remind me of Batawekar (for the uninitiated, Dr. Batawekar is a character, a rather hilarious one, who features in a string of ads for Happydent White chewing gum).

Among other things, Abhu and I, who SO love BJB Chaat (this is the chaat this is available outside our college. Since college is called BJB blah blah, the name of the chaat wala’s chaat is BJB chaat) did NOT get to eat some on our last day of college. Sad, righ? We were shocked that the chaat wala wasn’t there. Instead, we settled for some alu-dum-dahi-vada (which is served in a leafy bowl along with a single toothpick) which was heavenly. We had never tried that out! Well, the most interesting and challenging yet fun part was to eat all that with a toothpick. It IS an art. Really. But when it comes to eating, Abhu and I are unstoppable. We have such congruity in what we want to eat (absolutely anything that looks and tastes good), when we want to eat (absolutely any time of the day) and how much of it we want to eat (as much as our stomach can fit without tearing at the sides) is delightful. I would say, we are meant to eat together. On the other hand, TC is the one who looks disapprovingly at us (and with a certain amount of disbelief that we can manage to gormandize the manner in which we do) and eats like half of what we do. Heehee *sigh* We shall all miss these food trips. The joys of eating. *sigh*

I cannot write anymore! I must go and eat something delicious now. This reminds me of my Enid Blyton days, when I could read ONLY with a plate of yummy chocolates and sandwiches next to me, for all those scenes when the famous five would ‘lunch’ on ginger beer, marshmallow, sandwiches that Aunt so-and-so had made for them, bacon and eggs, milk etc. It is torture to read Blyton’s books without some food near you for immediate consumption!

I am SO back. It pains me to see that I’ve been missing out on so much fun in Blogosphere.

Hmm.

It’s strange. I can’t find anything to write about! God. Is this the dreaded ‘writer’s block’? I hope not. May be it’s just the ‘writers’(who-haven’t-written-since-a-mighty-long-time) block ?

Well, there IS one thing that I do want to talk about- The Beatles. My current ultimate-favourite band *sigh* I simply cannot find a Beatles song that I don’t adore. It’s weird!

*thinks*

*keeps thinking*

Okay. Nothing more to say. Well, there are tons of Abhu, S and TC related stories, extremely entertaining ones, mind you. The problem is that I’m still thinking which one of those to recount in these holy pages. So until I figure that out, I’ll do the tag that Isha has sent my way!

The Three Things Tag (hee, I named it myself!)

3 things that scare me: Fear, fear and fear

3 people who make me laugh: S (max!), Abhu & TC (BIG time), Suk & Raghu (erm.. I’ve mentioned 5 people, but you see, they must be mentioned in groups)